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alex

As I stormed out of the house trying not to slam doors, I could scarce contain my anger.Where does the man get off thinking he can get away with trying to feel me up when he knows I’m mad at him?!
A voice in my head tried to tell me that perhaps I was being a little harsh but I silenced it. I know I’ve been mean to him lately but there’s nothing like tough love to cure a lazy man. I’ll drop dead before I turn into my mother!
Desperate to vent I called my best friend Nneka.
“Alex needs to get his act together because I have no intention of financing his lazy ass for much longer. This is not the life I signed up for. Who wants a man that can’t look after his family?!”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Whatever Nneka, I’m serious! I’m sick of Alex’s crap!”
“Calm down Karen, you know Alex isn’t that kind of man. He is just going through a difficult patch. He’ll be back on his feet soon enough.”
“Yeah, that’s what my mother said for 20 years while my father sat on his ass getting drunk and fat off her hard work.”
“Haba! How can you say that?! Alex is nothing like your father! He will find a job soon enough, be patient with him. You’re his wife, you should be supporting him. Cut the guy some slack. He has been good to you and deserves the same from you now that he is in a difficult place.”
“And I haven’t I been good to him too? In the last six months I’ve paid every bill that needed paying, fed him and fuelled his car so he could attend the many meetings he claimed would help get him a job. I’m done doing it. If he really wanted a job he’d have found one by now. He knows people, surely it’s not that difficult?! ”
“Wow Karen, when did you become so unfeeling? And since when is finding a job in Lagos or anywhere in the world for that matter, not that difficult?”
“You know what, you’re getting on my nerves. I will speak to you later.”
I hung up without waiting for a response. I forget how annoying Nneka can be. It’s why she gets on so well with my mum, association of door mats. I can’t stand weak women. I love Alex but I’m no fool.Karen, don’t you think you’re being too hard on the man? You know he has been trying.
I remembered how my mum would rush home from work night after night to cook dinner for a man who had done nothing but sit in front of the TV all day. One day, she came home late and he was so mad that he wasn’t served dinner at the usual time, he beat her till she ran out of the house screaming for help. I will never forget the sight of her kneeling in the driveway begging for his forgiveness, after he locked her out of the house. The house her salary paid for. It was the moment I lost all respect for her. She is a weakling but I, Karen, am made of sterner stuff.
If Alex thought he was marrying my mother’s daughter, he thought wrong.